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Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in the New Testament writings of his early followers, in which context he is known as the Christ (or Messiah). It shares with Judaism the Hebrew Scriptures (called the Old Testament by Christians), and is referred to as an Abrahamic religion, along with Judaism and Islam. Christianity has an estimated 2.1 billion adherents, or about one-third of the total world population.

Its followers, known as Christians, believe that Jesus is the son of God and is also the Messiah (or Christ) who was prophesied in the Old Testament (the part of scripture common to Christianity and Judaism). To Christians, Jesus Christ is a teacher, the model of a virtuous life, the revealer of God, and most importantly the saviour of humanity who suffered, died, and was resurrected in order to bring about salvation from sin. Christians maintain that Jesus ascended into heaven, and most denominations teach that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead, granting everlasting life to his followers. Christians describe the New Testament account of Jesus' ministry as the Gospel, or "good news".

In the Bible, the word "Christian" is first mentioned in Acts 11:26: "For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch Jesus' disciples were first called Christians" (Gr. χριστιανοί, from Christ Gr. Χριστός, which means "the anointed"). (Verses within the Bible are cited by the book the verse is from, followed by the chapter, a colon, and the verse number itself. Acts 11:26 refers to the book of Acts, chapter eleven, verse twenty-six.)

As a result of various disagreements including the East-West Schism and the Protestant Reformation, Christianity has become divided into many bodies of faith or communions, whose beliefs and practices may vary greatly. The largest are the Roman Catholic Church (both the Latin and the Eastern Rites) and the Eastern Orthodox Church, but the body of Christians includes many other groups such as the other Eastern churches such as Oriental Orthodoxy, the various Protestant denominations and the African Initiated churches. There are also various distinct churches separating themselves from traditional Christianity but claiming Jesus, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also called Mormons), Jehovah's Witnesses, Quakers, Christian Science and other groups. Collectively, the various denominations and groups form the largest religion on Earth.

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An angel prevents the sacrifice of Isaac.
Abraham and Isaac, Rembrandt, 1634

Abraham is a figure in the Torah, Bible, and Quran whom Jewish, Christian and Muslim believers regard as the founding patriarch of the Israelites, Arabs and Edomite peoples. In what is thus called Abrahamic religious tradition, Abraham is the forefather of these peoples.

According to the Torah, Abraham was brought by God from Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan, around 2000 BCE. There, he entered into a covenant: in exchange for sole recognition of Yahweh as supreme universal deity and authority, Abraham will be blessed with innumerable progeny. His life as narrated in the book of Genesis (chapters 11–25) may reflect various traditions.

His original name was Abram (Hebrew: אַבְרָם‎, Standard  Avram Tiberian ʾAḇrām) meaning either "exalted father" or "[my] father is exalted" (compare Abiram). For the latter part of his life, he was called Abraham (see retroactive nomenclature), often glossed as av hamon (goyim) "father of many (nations)" per Genesis 17:5, although it does not have any literal meaning in Hebrew.

Abraham was the third son of Terah and the grandson of Nahor. Abraham's older brothers were named Nahor and Haran. (The city of Ḥaran was not named after this brother and is spelled differently in Hebrew.)

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are sometimes referred to as the "Abrahamic religions", because of the role Abraham plays in their holy books. In the Jewish tradition, he is called Avraham Avinu or "Abraham, our Father". God promised Abraham that through his offspring, all the nations of the world will come to be blessed (Genesis 12:3), interpreted in Christian tradition as a reference to Christ. Jews, Christians, and Muslims consider him father of the people of Israel through his son Isaac (cf. Exodus 6:3, Exodus 32:13). For Muslims, he is a prophet of Islam and the ancestor of Muhammad through his other son Ishmael. By his concubine , Keturah, (Genesis 25) Abraham is also a progenitor of the Semitic tribes of the Negev who trace their descent from their common ancestor Sheba (Genesis 10:28).

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In the news

• July 13, 2008 - Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Sydney ahead of World Youth Day 2008 celebrations. (ABC News)
• February 26, 2008 - The Our Lady of the Rosary Church is scheduled to open in Qatar and be that country's first church in 14 centuries (CathNews)
• February 25, 2008 - Larry Norman dies of heart failure at the age of 60 (Christianity Today) See more from Christianity on WikiNews

Did you know?

...that the Bible was the greatest passion of Sir Isaac Newton, who said, "I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily."?
...that the Black Madonna of Częstochowa is credited with miraculously saving the Polish monastery of Jasna Góra (English: Bright Hill) from a Swedish 17th century invasion, known as the Deluge?
...that, with 74% of its population Catholics and 15.4% Protestant, Brazil has the largest Christian population in the world?

Selected biography

Lottie Moon (December 12, 1840 – December 24, 1912) was a Southern Baptist missionary to China with the Foreign Mission Board who spent nearly forty years (1873-1912) helping the Chinese. As a teacher and evangelist she laid a foundation for traditionally solid support for missions among Baptists in America.

Moon was born to affluent parents who were staunch Baptists, Anna Maria Barclay and Edward Harris Moon. She grew up (to her full height of 4 feet 3 inches) on the family's ancestral fifteen-hundred-acre slave-labor tobacco plantation called Viewmont, in Albemarle County, Virginia. Lottie was third in a family of five girls and two boys. Lottie was only thirteen when her father died in a riverboat accident.

The Moon family valued education, and at age fourteen Lottie went to school at the Baptist-affiliated Virginia Female Seminary (high school, later Hollins Institute) and Albemarle Female Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia. In 1861 Moon received one of the first Master of Arts degrees awarded to a woman by a southern institution. She spoke numerous languages: Latin, Greek, French, Italian and Spanish. She was also fluent in reading Hebrew. Later, she would become expert at Chinese.

A spirited and outspoken girl, Lottie was indifferent to her Christian upbringing until her late teens. She underwent a spiritual awakening at the age of eighteen, after a series of revival meetings on the college campus.

There were very few opportunities for educated females in the mid-1800s, though her older sister Orianna became a physician and served as a Confederate Army doctor during the American Civil War. Lottie helped her mother maintain the family estate during the war, and afterward settled into a teaching career. She taught at female academies, first in Danville, Kentucky, then in Cartersville, Georgia, where she and her friend, Anna, opened Cartersville Female High School in 1871. There she joined the First Baptist Church and ministered to the poor and impoverished families of Bartow County, Georgia.

To the family’s surprise, Lottie’s younger sister Edmonia accepted a call to go to North China as a missionary in 1872. By this time the Southern Baptist Convention had relaxed its policy against sending single women into the mission field, and Lottie herself soon felt called to follow her sister to China. On July 7, 1873 the Foreign Mission Board officially appointed Lottie as a missionary to China. She was thirty-three years old.

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Selected scripture

Hebrews 13:5-6 5Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

  "Never will I leave you; 
     never will I forsake you."Italic text

6So we say with confidence,

  "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. 
     What can man do to me'Bold text'?"[

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